Blessed weightlessness came over Diddiq. Then a slight twisting sensation as the maneuvering thrusters turned the shuttle. Nesex slowly came into view out the window. Diddiq noticed that the solians’ annoying radio signal had completely disappeared and wondered what that blessed change meant.
The crewhaliq beside him asked, “What are you trying to see, Expedition Leader?”
Diddiq looked at his time display again, thinking that, if he remembered the timing correctly, the impact should’ve occurred a few seconds ago.
When he looked back out the porthole Nesex had vanished.
Diddiq’s first reaction was to think the window was facing the wrong direction again. Then he saw a couple of tumbling fragments and realized Nesex had been utterly demolished. His second reaction was to wonder how it could’ve been demolished so silently. But the vacuum of space is always silent, isn’t it? he thought.
Staggered, Diddiq realized a moderately large fragment rapidly wheeling into the distance was the bow of Nesex. The middle two-thirds of the massive ship had been turned into an expanding cloud of tiny, small, and medium-sized fragments. And many of the fragments I’m seeing are fellow haliq, he realized. Nesex’s stern and its rocket engines, freed of the mass of the rest of the ship it had been decelerating, was plowing backward through the cloud of fragments.
The irritating crewhaliq behind him said, “First mother! What in the primal planet just happened?”
Other exclamations began ringing around the inside of the shuttle. Diddiq shouted, “SHUT UP!” When radio silence had fallen, he said, “The solians looked like they were going to try to attack Nesex. Though I didn’t think they’d succeed, in case they did, I deemed it advisable to move the leadership of the expedition onto a shuttle that could take it to Kranex.” He glanced out the porthole, “It looks like that was a good decision.” He addressed the pilot, “Take us to Kranex. Tell them I’ll want to talk to Captain Hariq as soon as I’m aboard.”
He turned to peer out the window again, realizing he hadn’t noticed any fragments of the shiny material the solian ship was made of. Upon a harder look, he still didn’t see any. The pieces must be too small to recognize, he thought at first.
Then he remembered that even an atomic fission weapon hadn’t destroyed the first solian ship. Could their ship have blown right through Nesex and out the other side in one piece?! he wondered. He lowered his antennae in negation. If it did, surely it’s as dead as their first ship?
Chapter Nine
In the last few minutes before impact, Massey said, “They’ve cut their drive and are using small thrusters to move galactic north. They’re maneuvering to avoid us! At least one small boat has left the big vessel… they may be trying to abandon ship.”
“Will you be able to compensate for their maneuver?” Lee asked.
“The navigation AI has adjusted for the current change but we’re about to staze!”
Ray Jones, the first officer, said, “Pulling in the radar dishes… Okay, we’re stazing!”
Lee thought, If we miss, we’ll just turn around and take another shot at them. She asked, “Did we staze?” Not for the first time, she thought, There should be some kind of light flash immediately after coming out. Something to let you know you’d been through a stasis event.
Massey said, “Yeah. We stazed. I’m going to turn the ship.”
“Redeploying the radar,” Ray Jones said.
Massey grunted, “Damn! She’s turning like a pig!”
“Maybe we picked up some debris,” Ray said. “Deploying hull cameras.”
Several of the hull cameras showed it was an, “of course,” kind of problem: Massive quantities of debris from the alien ship filled the big dish to overflowing. “Holy crap!” Lee breathed. “That probably triples Maui’s mass.”
“It’s a lot,” the crewwoman, Carol, said dubiously, “but that isn’t twice as much stuff as the rest of Maui.”
“You’re forgetting that most of Maui’s made of vacuum Stade and has essentially no mass,” Ray said. “The real question is how we’re going to get rid of all that crap?”
“Use your forward-facing docking thrusters,” Lee said, a surprised tone in her voice. “We’ll just back our way out of it.”
“Those thrusters don’t have much impulse…” Ray began, then shook his head. “I was about to say they weren’t strong enough to pull us loose, but of course, the hull’s made of Stade.” Carol gave him a confused look so he continued, “There won’t be any friction with the debris from the alien ship.”
“Oh, yeah…” Carol said.
“Reversing thrust,” Captain Massey said. “Strap in.” A few seconds later, Lee started to float up out of her chair though her harness held her in place.
Ray left the cameras deployed just long enough for them to see the alien ship’s wreckage start to slide up out of the dish and along the cylinder of Maui’s body toward its bow. With that confirmed, he tucked them in so the passing wreckage wouldn’t rip them off the hull.
Though, Lee thought, since their mounts are Stade, it’s more important to tuck them in so the wreckage doesn’t snag on the mounts and stay with us.
Massey cut the reverse thrust after just a few seconds. Lee’s initial reaction was that they couldn’t be free of the remains of the alien ship yet. Then she realized that once they were moving backward—without any friction to hold the stuff to Maui—they’d continue pulling back out of it without any more of a push. Which, of course, would save thruster fuel they might need when they were dealing with the next two alien ships.
Massey looked over at Ray and gave him a nod, “We should be free. Deploy the cameras and make sure we are.”
The bow’s aft-facing cameras showed the hull was clean. Forward-facing cameras showed a donut of compacted alien wreckage slowly drifting away.
Ray deployed the radar and used it to search around for the alien ships. “Holy shit! The ship we hit is shredded!” He studied the screen for a few seconds, then said, “We’re not as far from the other two ships as I expected…” he said musingly. Then, “Ah, of course. That’s because we lost most of our relative velocity by picking up a huge chunk of the alien ship’s mass.
Massey said, “We’ll need more distance if we’re going to build up enough velocity to take out another one.” She turned and looked at Lee, “You think we need 5,000 kilometers again? Or, could we go with 1,000?”
Lee said, “That last one did seem like overkill, didn’t it? Let me see…” She spoke to her phone’s assistant, asking it to run some calculations. Looking up, she said, “If we back off to 1,000 kilometers, we should have the kinetic energy of seventeen tons of TNT when we hit it. The previous one was equivalent to eighty-three tons TNT, but I’m thinking seventeen’s probably plenty.”
Massey scratched her head, then contemplatively said. “If we hit it softer, take out the middle of their ship, but then have to chase down the bow and stern because they weren’t damaged enough…”
Lee said, “Where would the fragments end up if they stopped decelerating now?”
Massey nodded, “Let me ask the navigation computer.” A minute later she looked up and said, “They’d get there sooner, so they’d pass pretty far in front of Earth in its orbit. Then, they’d continue in toward the sun, and eventually wind up in an elongated-elliptical orbit.” She shrugged, “Usually called a cometary orbit.” She shook her head and said, “Which, astonishingly enough, is what I’d guessed. I find orbital mechanics so counterintuitive that I’m usually wrong.”
Lee laughed. “I know what you mean. “I’m thinking if we hit this next ship in the stern instead of the middle, that maybe there’ll be a good chunk of the front of the ship left for us to study. Maybe even some survivors, so Earth can get a look at their biology.”
Ray grimaced, “If they thought they could take us out with a bioweapon, I wouldn’t want to be part of the crew that tried to study their biology.”
Lee narrowed her eyes at him and made fin
ger quotes, “‘If they thought they could take us out with a bioweapon,’ I definitely want some of our bioscientists to study their ship and biotech. Presumably, such scientists know how to protect themselves. Also, presumably, we shouldn’t be the ones deciding how the biological issues should be handled.”
Ray grinned and raised his hands in surrender. “You’re right. I’m just saying I wouldn’t want to be part of the team that landed on their ship to study their biology. I think we’ll have done our share by stopping the bastards this time.”
Lee grinned back, realizing just how relieved she felt that their plan had worked. “Well, you’re certainly right about that! I’m not coming back out here to deal with these guys either. Time for the B team to earn their keep.”
Massey snorted. “Now that you two have finished deciding who’s gonna do what, I’d like to suggest that on the third ship we take out the bow. That way, since we took out the middle of the first ship, we should have two bows, two sterns, and two midships for later teams to evaluate.”
“Great idea,” Lee said.
“Okay, strap in,” Massey said. “I’ve gotta swing Maui around to a new vector before we can start out to our 1,000-kilometer starting point.”
Lee started to worry about whether their little trick would work two more times. Though, she thought, it’s actually a pretty big trick. She narrowed her eyes. I’d better start thinking about how they might try to stop us!
***
As he stared down Hariq, Captain of the Kranex, Diddiq ground out in his most menacing tone, “I said, ‘search for the solians’ ship along the trajectory it was following before it hit Nesex!’”
“And, I told you it’d be a waste of our time,” Hariq said. “Anyone with engineering expertise could tell you that the kind of impact that demolished Nesex will also have destroyed the alien ship.”
“Who’s your second-in-command, Hariq?”
“Commander Saniq. Why?”
Diddiq turned his eyes to a haliq wearing commander’s bars, “Saniq?”
The haliq spread her legs slightly as she came to the position of attention, then lifted her antennae in affirmation.
Diddiq asked, “Do you know what happened to the solian ship we bombed with an atomic weapon?”
“Um, yes, Expedition Leader. It was blown far away.”
“Was it destroyed?”
“Um, no, sir. It’s intact and it’s still sending out a repeating radio signal.”
Diddiq turned his eyes back to Hariq. “You’re relieved of command.” He turned his eyes to the bridge guards and said, “Arrest Captain Hariq and put him in the brig.” Then he rotated toward Saniq and said, “You’re the captain now. Have your navigation team find the solians’ ship and find out what it’s doing.”
Hariq stepped toward Diddiq, saying, “You can’t—”
Diddiq pulled his sidearm and shot Hariq in the braincase below his eyes. As Hariq slumped to the floor, Diddiq’s eyes followed him down. He said, “Yes, I can.” He swept the bridge with his eyes and blasted them all from his antennae, “I have the power of life or death over every haliq in this expedition! Do not reject my orders. You may politely disagree while carrying them out or ask for a moment’s discussion, but do not say ‘no’ or try to imply I’m stupid!” Turning back to the guards, he waved at Hariq’s body, “Have someone clean up this mess.”
Before they finished removing Hariq’s body, Saniq said, “Expedition Leader. Radar shows the solian ship coasting through space. It’s on a trajectory that’s seventeen degrees galactic south from the course it was on before it hit Nesex.”
Diddiq’s tertiary heart started beating in alarm. He hadn’t, in his hearts, thought the solian ship would survive the impact—silly in view of the fact that the first ship appeared undamaged after an atomic weapon went off in contact with its hull. “Is it tumbling like the first solian ship?”
“Um, no, Expedition Leader. When radar first picked it up it was turning slowly but now it’s stopped turning.” Saniq’s eyes rotated away from her screens and focused on Diddiq. “Uh, now it’s activated its drive.”
It’s still functional?! Diddiq cursed to himself. Primal Planet! It’s going to hit Kranex next! Still looking at Saniq and glad his antennae weren’t trembling, he asked, “Where’s it aimed?”
“It’s moving away, Expedition Leader.”
“Where’s it going?!” Diddiq asked. He felt relieved the aliens weren’t aimed at Kranex but angry Saniq hadn’t answered the question he’d posed.
Saniq consulted with the navigation team, then turned his eyes back to Diddiq. “Expedition Leader, we don’t know. It’s aimed mostly away from us, but there’s nothing out there that it’s going toward.” She hesitated, “Perhaps it’s running away?”
“I understand it isn’t aimed at anything,” Diddiq said, thinking that Saniq’s incorrect focus on the alien ship’s aim ignored orbital mechanics. “But where’s its trajectory going to take it at that acceleration?”
Saniq nervously shrugged her antennae. “It depends on how much fuel it has… Um, I mean, how long it can keep its drive going. But unless it’s going to an asteroid we haven’t detected, all of its possible trajectories, assuming it doesn’t change course, would simply wind up in various orbits around the system’s star.”
What in the first ancestor are they doing? Diddiq wondered, not believing for a moment that they were fleeing. He turned his eyes and antennae in the direction he imagined the aliens were going while he thought. After a few moments, he gave himself a shake and said, “Okay. Put me in touch with the chief bioscience officer on Kranex.”
~~~
Diddiq learned to his dismay that Nesex hadn’t finished analyzing and transmitting the solian DNA sequences to Kranex when it’d been destroyed. “Will you be able to design a bioweapon with what you’ve got?” he asked.
“We can try,” the bioscientist said nervously. Word of Diddiq’s summary judgment of Captain Hariq had spread rapidly through Kranex.
“But what are your chances of—” Diddiq was saying when a shout interrupted them.
When Diddiq turned his eyes, he saw Saniq stepping up behind him. “What?!”
Apprehensively, Saniq said, “The solian ship has performed a turnover maneuver.”
“And?” Diddiq asked.
“It’s firing its rocket again. Navigation says they’re going to hit us like they did Nesex.”
“How are you going to stop them?” Diddiq asked, doing his best to appear calm even though his third heart was accelerating again.
“Huh?” Saniq said as if startled by the question.
“You’re the captain of this ship now, Saniq. It’s your job to fight those solians and win. How are you going to do it?” Diddiq was beginning to regret shooting Captain Hariq even though he realized he had no evidence Hariq would’ve performed better in this unprecedented situation.
Saniq paused and turned his eyes to look out through the bulkhead as if they could see the alien. “We could…”
“Could what?” Diddiq asked patiently even though his tertiary heart wasn’t slowing.
“Ask for volunteers.”
“To do what?”
“To fly out to meet them in a shuttle containing a nuclear weapon.”
“Are you thinking they could drop the weapon in the alien’s path?”
“No,” Saniq said quietly. “They would have to be conditioned for a suicide mission.”
“Can they time it that closely?” Diddiq asked, well aware that—in the vacuum of space—an atomic bomb had to be very close to do physical damage because there was nothing to carry the shock wave.
If it went off too soon, it would cause no harm. It would emit a lot of radiation, perhaps enough to kill the solians if they were susceptible, but they wouldn’t die immediately. If the bomb didn’t destroy the ship, conceivably they might yet attack Kranex even though they were dying.
If the bomb tried to fire too late, the impact would likely disrup
t the firing mechanism enough that it wouldn’t detonate at all.
Saniq had been consulting with someone. Now he said, “We have some proximity detonators.”
“Good. Set it up,” Diddiq said.
Diddiq began considering how to get off Kranex in case the solians couldn’t be kept from hitting it.
***
When SC Maui’s first officer, Ray Jones, said, “They’re launching something!” Carol Lipsitz looked apprehensively up from her screen.
Staze’s brilliant ship designer, and the person Carol thought of as their leader, April Lee, looked up at the same time. Calmly, she asked, “Please put it up on the big screen. What do you think it is?”
Carol found their maneuvers with the aliens harrowing. It had been over a week now since they’d learned about the aliens and all agreed to “go out and observe.” Carol thought her normal anxiety levels would’ve had her practically catatonic if it wasn’t for how steady Lee seemed as she handled each new problem thrown their way. Captain Massey and First Officer Ray Jones had also coped well, but Carol thought they’d also benefited from Lee’s cool assessments of each new crisis, as well as her suggestions for one eminently reasonable course of action after another.
Lee might refer to Captain Massey as her co-leader, but Carol had no doubt Lee was the one steering their course.
Somehow Lee made it evident, not only that the world’s survival hung in the balance, but that the welfare of the human race depended on them doing the right thing.
And, more importantly, that they could do it.
Not only were they the only ones who could do it, but her calm demeanor made it seem that it wouldn’t be that hard. She can’t be as confident as she appears, can she?” Carol wondered. She must harbor doubts. Perhaps not as many as the rest of us do, but she just can’t be as cool as she acts.
Lee said, “It looks like it’s about the same relative size as the shuttle they sent to Phoenix or the one that moved from the trailing ship to the middle ship just before we attacked. Maybe, now that we’re targeting the middle ship, it’s moving to the forward one?”
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